


Kill 'em With Kindness: Flowey's Desires

by ArgentDandelion



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Analysis, Canon Temporary Character Death, Character Analysis, Despair, Essay, Gen, Heavy Angst, Mercy - Freeform, Meta, Nonfiction, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Time Travel, Undertale Saves and Resets, suicide by cop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-13 11:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20173414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentDandelion/pseuds/ArgentDandelion
Summary: Analyzes Flowey's motives in threatening Frisk and the people Frisk loves after a Neutral Route battle.





	Kill 'em With Kindness: Flowey's Desires

**(WARNING: Heavy suicide themes.)**

Flowey’s life overflows with so much misery and trauma that, even if he weren’t resurrected as a soulless flower, he might have become Flowey-like anyway through PTSD. As a flower, he couldn’t feel love, no matter how much he tried. He grew despondent. He didn’t want to live in a world without love, without Chara, and so “erased [himself] from existence”.

But Flowey’s existential terror at asking what happens to a soulless being when it dies brought him back: he rewound time. Exploring his powers, he “brought [himself] to the edge of death”, again and again. He used his powers for good, at first, but eventually he tired of it. He decided to kill everyone instead, but eventually that, too, lost its appeal. His inability to feel love, his power of SAVE, and his memorization of everyone’s responses made him estranged from others, and he grew tired of the Underground and its people in general.

When Frisk fell in, there was finally something novel, fun, and worth an effort: something worth living for. He was delighted at the prospect of killing Frisk over and over. After trapping Frisk in an inescapable ring of bullets, he dared them to call for help: “Mommy! Daddy! Somebody help me!” He may very well have been re-enacting the trauma of waking up as a flower, or mocking poor, compassionate Asriel.

But this time was different: six people, the Human SOULs, answered Frisk’s cry for help. They stopped Flowey and rebelled against him, causing him to turn back into a mere flower.

Flowey was at a very low point. He thought he had something worthwhile again, but the joy of achieving his long-sought goal (getting the human SOULs) was short-lived, and would never happen again. Frisk’s cry for help, but not his own, was answered, for no reason. His chance at happiness denied, he figured he had no reason to live anymore.

When Frisk spares him then, he says: “What are you doing? Do you really think I’ve learned anything from this? No.” Perhaps Flowey, though lacking compassion, has some remaining morality: after all, he was once reluctant to kill and felt bad about it. Perhaps Flowey rejects Frisk’s mercy because he thinks he’s too far gone to be saved. If spared a second time, he says: “Sparing me won’t change anything. Killing me is the only way to end this."

Flowey was once terrified of what would happen when a soulless being died, but, at that point, he doesn’t care anymore. Frisk has the power of SAVE. If they want, Flowey can stay dead. So Flowey, doing a sort of Suicide by Cop trope, gives Frisk reasons to kill him and keep him dead. He points out how he hasn’t “learned anything”, says killing him is the only way to “end this”, and threatens Frisk, everyone, and all of Frisk’s friends just to make him seem like a threat that must be stopped at any cost.

If Frisk keeps sparing him, he grows increasingly distressed: from baffled, to unnerved, to nearly sobbing. If, however, Frisk chooses to kill him at any point in the sequence, he gives a big grin and says: “I know you had it in you!” Killing him validates his worldview of “it’s kill or be killed!” and gives him what he wants, perhaps even what he thinks he deserves.

Sparing Flowey was surely motivated by love and compassion: feelings Flowey doesn’t feel any more. Perhaps he doesn’t understand compassion at all anymore; perhaps he just doesn’t understand why anyone would be compassionate to him, after all he’s done. By the thirteenth time Frisk spares him, Flowey flees Frisk’s kindness.

Apparently, Frisk thinks Flowey deserves to live, despite what he’s done, for reasons Flowey doesn’t understand. To Flowey, Frisk might as well be an unkillable, incomprehensible Elder God on a rampage of compassion.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my [Tumblr](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/). Feel free to comment on this article there or here.


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